


with smoke-filled eyes

by cress_ent



Series: our fire rages, our hearts are never tame [4]
Category: Dream SMP war - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Dream SMP War, Fire, Fire as a metaphor, Gen, cress rambles about fundy and loyalty and betrayal for 2k words, otherwise known as
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cress_ent/pseuds/cress_ent
Summary: Eret’s here.It’s raining, and Fundy’s absolutely drenched, water clinging to every available inch of fur or fabric on his body. This is the first time he’s talked to Eret since the elections began, he thinks. Has it already been that long?“So, you burned down Niki’s flag,” Eret says as they approach, an unreadable expression hidden behind their dark glasses and their ever-stoic face. “What happened to loyalty, Fundy?”-or, in which fundy burns all his bridges, in the hopes that when the fire clears, when the rain stops, he'll be able to rebuild them.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: our fire rages, our hearts are never tame [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970710
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	with smoke-filled eyes

Fundy’s lungs ache.

He coughs, and it feels like dust has settled into every crevice of his lungs, smoke filling every open inch. His eyes burn, and he can’t tell if it’s from the smoke that seems to have seeped its acrid stench into every square inch of his clothes or from his sleepless nights. He’s still wearing his L’Manberg uniform, the pale blue fabric covered in soot and dirt and torn in more places than Fundy would want to mend. He sheds the jacket, the sharp smell of smoke coming with it, and tosses it in the firepit in the corner of his secret base. 

(He’s been working on it for days, now, even before the entire election — somewhere only he can get to, somewhere secret and safe. Fundy knows he’s walking a dangerously thin tightrope — if Schlatt figures out that he’s playing the part of the double agent, he’ll be screwed. He needs somewhere secure. Somewhere he can drop the character that he’s played so far — and played well, if Niki’s reaction has been any indication — and remember where he came from, and what he’s fighting for.)

The flint and steel in his hand feel almost too familiar; it scares him, a little. He watches with only a faint twinge of sadness as the blue jacket burns. (It was a promise, a promise of loyalty and union and safety and independence. Never mind that the promise had already been broken. Never mind that the only ones who’d been left wearing it, after Schlatt had taken his place as ruler and cast out Tommy and Wilbur, were himself and Niki. 

Never mind that now, with this burning that shouldn’t feel as symbolic as it does, Niki will be the only one left with this intrinsic tie to L’Manberg and everything it stood for.)

Fundy watches the flickering flames for a moment more, watches the powder blue fabric turn grey and black and become nothing more than ashes and sparks, before turning his back to the fire and opening the lid to his ender chest. The only other coat he has is his familiar hoodie, with coloured stripes across the horizontal that he feels like he hasn’t seen in years, since before he cared about things like independence and democracy and betrayal.

It’s almost fitting, for Fundy to be wearing this now, when he is the most alone, and the most himself. 

(Tubbo’s been wearing a suit, under Schlatt’s orders, and in the same way that wearing the L’Manberg uniform meant that they were at the mercy of Wilbur’s whims, wearing a suit puts them at the mercy of Schlatt’s. Fundy’s shed the familiar uniform for something — something more  _ him _ . He’s acting on his own impulses, his own motivations, he’s the only one that knows where his loyalties truly lie — it’s fitting that he dons his own ‘uniform,’ of sorts, after all this time.)

His hands are covered in blisters and calluses, visual reminders of the back-breaking work he was tasked with. Fundy still can’t really believe it, keeps doing a double take whenever he walks through Manberg — it all looks so different without the walls. 

Tearing down the walls — it felt like a betrayal.  _ Was _ a betrayal, if he’s going to go that far — he saw Wilbur on the hill. Knows what the walls meant to Wilbur, why they were built. (As much as they were there to keep Dream and all his cronies out, Fundy knows his father also meant for them to keep him in. Keep his son and everyone else he cared for safe.) He  _ had _ to do it, he had no other choice — if he isn’t completely convincing in his charade, Schlatt will find out, and all the work he’s done so far, all the relationships with his friends he’s had to ruin, it’ll all be for nothing. And if that means Fundy has to tear down the walls that have been all he’s ever known, then it means he’ll tear down the walls, and he’ll bandage his hands when they begin to bleed, and he’ll breathe in the dust that comes from the cracked stone and concrete. 

Betrayal — it’s something Fundy feels too familiar with, now. He thought the closest he’d ever get to it was Eret, in the first war — he prided himself on his loyalty, that he was born on L’Manberg’s land and would stay loyal to the only nation he’s known till the bitter end. But he burned down the flag,  _ their  _ flag, and he keeps seeing Niki’s face, pained and with tears streaming down her cheeks and with immeasurable anger, whenever he closes his eyes. 

They all think Fundy is a traitor, and that’s what keeps him up at night.

It’s for the better, he tells himself, reaching into another chest and pulling out yards of thick, dark fabric, two spools of burning red thread the size of his head, thick iron needles that shimmer softly with the violet glow of enchantments. This act, this charade, this finely choreographed dance has to be executed perfectly,  _ believably _ . It’s for the better if Niki thinks he’s turned his back on L’Manberg. It’s for the better if Eret believes they’ve both betrayed the nation that they declared loyalty to all those weeks and months ago. It’s for the better if Wilbur believes that Fundy really cares so little about him. 

Since he burned down the L’Manberg flag, Schlatt’s been looking for a replacement, and unfortunately the alternative Fundy provided before was quickly burned down by a hot-tempered Tommy. (Fundy isn’t surprised, Tommy’s always been reckless and quick to anger. It’s reassuring, almost, that the people he knows still have some semblance of who they used to be in them, despite how much they — and everything around them — has changed.) Schlatt wanted something that wouldn’t be able to be burned down, something that would stand the test of time the same way he believed his own rule over Manberg would, and Fundy — the ever-loyal advisor — had no choice but to provide.

He’s proud of it, though — it takes a creative mind to figure out a way to weave obsidian into a fabric, thick stone into fluid cloth that can withstand the strength and heat of any fire, and a persistent mind to weave enough of it to create a flag that would tower menacingly above the plains that surround the core of Manberg. The fabric is deep, deep purple, nearly black, with a dark gleam to it that sends a shiver running down Fundy’s back. He spreads it out — even with half of it folded over, it covers an entire table and then some — and regards the glowing spools of thread with growing dread. It’s spun from some ungodly combination of lava and magma, and took him hours to figure out how to make and even longer to spin enough for this flag, and it burns his hands whenever he touches it. 

Fundy grimaces, uncorking a bottle of fire resistance potion — he was saving it for the next time he wanted to explore the nether, but he’s committed to what he’s doing here — and downing it. They always leave a bitter taste in his mouth, burning slightly from the blaze powder and yet sticky from the slime that goes into it. It’s necessary, though, to save his hands from the worst of the burns that would come with working with thread spun of the closest thing he can get to fire.

He pulls the thread through the eye of the needle, piercing it through the thick, thick fabric, all too aware of how menacing the glowing thread looks against the obsidian-cloth. It’s a lot of work, for a simple-looking result, but it’s worth it. This one won’t burn. It has to be worth it.

Eret’s here.

It’s raining, and Fundy’s absolutely drenched, water clinging to every available inch of fur or fabric on his body. This is the first time he’s talked to Eret since the elections began, he thinks. Has it already been that long? 

“So, you burned down Niki’s flag,” Eret says as they approach, an unreadable expression hidden behind their dark glasses and their ever-stoic face. “What happened to loyalty, Fundy?”

“I could be asking the same of you,  _ Eret, _ ” Fundy retorts, and okay, maybe he’s still bitter. Maybe it still stings to think about how Eret betrayed them. (Never mind that he’s doing the same thing now.) He crosses his arms over his chest, trying to ignore the soft shivering of his tail from the cold of the rain. “You know  _ all _ about loyalty, don’t you.”

The mask breaks, and Fundy swears he can see a flash of pain, regret, slip through the cracks in their armour before that stoic expression is back. “You know I regret it.”

“You’re living pretty cozily in that castle,” Fundy says, not breaking his gaze. “If you really regretted it, wouldn’t you be fighting with Niki? Providing Wilbur and Tommy some asylum?”

They frown, eyebrows furrowing. “You know it’s not that simple, Fundy.”

Fundy can’t think of anything to say to that. They stand in the rain, six feet between them. The distance feels a lot farther. Maybe it’s the time. Maybe it’s how they’ve both changed. 

“Wilbur told me he’s going to blow up Manberg,” Eret says, breaking the silence. Alarm shoots through Fundy — these lands have already been laced with explosives and detonated once, he doesn’t want to see a repeat of that. (He acknowledges the irony in Eret being the one to deliver this news, when not even months ago they were the one planting TNT within L’Manberg’s walls.) “He’s rigged it all to blow, with a little help from… some wealthy benefactors, and some people in the right places,” they continue, turning away from Fundy to regard the scenery around them — Tubbo’s done a great job setting up for the festival Schlatt decreed would take place, with colourful tents and carnival attractions scattered around the Manberg lands, near the stage where Schlatt makes all those speeches he’s so fond of. 

Fundy is — he’s scared.

The Wilbur he knew — the Wilbur that raised him, and led him — was calm, and collected, and rational above all else, and stuck to his principles with a dedication and perseverance that Fundy tried his hardest to emulate. The Wilbur he knew would never have turned to something as desperate and destructive as the very tactics their enemies used against them to force them out of their own lands and weaken them where they were strongest. From what Eret’s told him just now, Fundy knows that Wilbur’s changed since he’s been thrown out, and that change hasn’t been for the better. 

(Part of him wonders how much of that is his fault. Fundy knows how badly Wilbur took Eret’s betrayal in the first war — was it him? Was it Wilbur’s own son, tearing down the walls that he built, burning the flag that represented their nation and every hope they placed on it, turning to the side of the man that stripped him from his power and his place in L’Manberg, denouncing their own blood relations — was that what tipped Wilbur over the edge?)

Fundy is scared, and he is ashamed, and he is full of guilt that might not even be warranted. 

Instead of telling Eret any of that, of opening the floodgates for all the emotions he’s forced himself to hide away for so long now, he asks, “Why should I care?” The forced indifference in his tone pierces through his own heart easier than any arrow or enchanted blade every could — Eret’s right, it  _ is _ a betrayal, and every necessary step of it stings. 

He can see it, on Eret’s face — the very moment the words sink in, when his words cut deep and shatter any hopes they had left that maybe Fundy wasn’t all gone. He knows, because he’s seen that same expression time and time again — Tubbo, Wilbur, Niki, all of them with an expression he can only describe as broken as Fundy says the words that condemn him to the title of ‘traitor,’ that guarantee him a spot at Schlatt’s side. “If Wilbur blows up Manberg,” Fundy continues, not giving Eret any time to process what he just said, (he knows that if he gives them the time, they’ll bring out the hard-hitters, the emotional wrecking balls that threaten to undo all the work Fundy’s done, it happened with Niki and it’s sure to happen here,) “that just makes him the villain. Cements it into history. And that’d be good for me, wouldn’t it?”

Eret says nothing. Fundy can see the barely-contained anger boiling below their skin, can see it in the familiar clenching of their jaw and tightening of their brow above the dark glasses that hide their glowing white eyes. 

“If Wilbur decides to be the bad guy, that’s our gain,” Fundy says, uncrossing his arms and jamming his hands in his pockets. It’s cold. He’s cold. “So I’ll say it again — why should I care if Wilbur decides to blow up Manberg?”

“Fundy, you  _ bastard _ ,” is all Eret gets out before they turn and storm away into the dark of the night, the sky rumbling ominously with thunder as they walk away. It hurts a little, but the sting is becoming familiar. 

If you swing a pickaxe enough times, your hands develop calluses, toughened skin in the areas that rub against the handle of the pickaxe. What begins as a debilitating mess of sores becomes thick skin that can withstand a bit of friction. Fundy’s familiar with this, his own hands a mess of blisters and burns and bruises from all the work he’s had to do for Schlatt, to prove himself and his worth here. 

He can only hope his heart operates under the same principles. 

**Author's Note:**

> you can tell that i am still not over the dream smp war. this study takes place in the time before the festival so isn't full accurate or lined up with the current state of the smp and the war but i am still posting it because sometimes life happens and you can't write this for two weeks. i hope you enjoyed
> 
> find me [here](https://twitter.com/MANGOP1E) on twitter!


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